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dear, his beautiful Nina, "the admired of all admirers," had promised him at the end of the season.

to marry

One day, after a very late ball, Nina, who had made a Park engagement with Lady was so overcome with fatigue that she fell asleep on the sofa; at the end of two hours the groom of the chambers awoke her, by announcing that Lady had called for her. She

started up, and rang for her bonnet. While she was waiting for it, she recollected that she had had no beauty on when she went to sleep, and put her hand into her bosom to search for her flacon, but, lo! it was gone; the little Venetian chain to which it was always attached was not to be found either. She looked everywhere-searched the sofa, the cushions, everything-but in vain! She was in despair, and sent down word she was too unwell to go out that morning; but her friend was not so easily put off, and, coming up, insisted that the air was the thing of all others that would do her good. Poor Nina, persuaded much against her will, at length accompanied her. To her great astonishment she had just as great a bevy of prancing steeds round the carriage as usual, and quite as many, if not more, compliments on her beauty than ever; the next day, too, the " Morning Post announced "that the young Countess Dalgarooki had graced the Park yesterday, looking more lovely than ever, and was as usual the cynosure of wondering eyes." "Why the people must be mad, or blind," said Nina, as she impatiently pushed the paper from her,

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Week after week passed away without the flacon being found; ball succeeded ball; Nina begged hard to stay away from them, but her father insisted that every one had been so civil, she absolutely must go. At length, on the plea of ill-health (which her looks too well confirmed) she got a reprieve; still, nothing was talked of but her great, her exceeding beauty; and the papers, while they deplored her bad health, expressed endless wonder that it had not in the least impaired her extreme loveliness!-while every really beautiful and blooming girl that came out was reprobated for their presumption, if they dared but in the slightest degree to dress their hair like the beautiful Russian.

Meanwhile, Nina herself became seriously unhappy. "Poor dear, dear Kieseroff," said she, "what a reward for all his devotion and generosity, to marry such a fright-and all through my own foolish vanity, too! How he would despise me if he knew it !-but he shall know it -for I will not add deceit to my other faults, especially towards him. Zamoiski was right. I do indeed repent my foolish compact; and, alas! by losing the flacon it is not in my power to avail myself of his promise to take back his gift."

In the midst of this reverie, Prince Kieseroff was announced. Nina, who had been crying, did not wish to add to the distress her haggard looks always occasioned him, by letting him see any traces of grief, withdrew into the adjoining room, A book of hers lay open upon the table. Seeing some verses in her hand-writing, he read the following lines :

Once a bloom was on the hours,
And my spirit, like a bee,
Flew through sunshine to the flowers
That young hope raised up for me;

And sweet thoughts memory hived

Deep within her honeyed store

:

So the soul of spring survived,
After spring's sweet life was o'er !
Now the foam is on the wave,

And the sear is on the leaf;
And to-day but digs the grave
That entombs to-morrow's grief:
While the leaden sands that roll

Through time's dim and rayless glass,
Cast a shadow o'er the soul,

Leave a furrow as they pass!
And the disenchanted world

Seems like an eastern tomb,
Where death's banner is unfurled

'Mid dull pomp, and pride, and gloom.
And love! the Sybarite feels

How his crumpled rose-leaf galls,
When fear's canker through it steals,

And grief's dew too quickly falls.
But if warring fate can show
All the nothingness of life,

"Tis no vain and fruitless woe

That springs up from out this strife;
But a boon most pure and bright,
As when storms have swept around,
In the chaos of the night,

Costly gems at morn are found *.
So what matter how this clay,
With its sorrow and its sin,
Falls in ruins fast away,

If but heaven's light breaks in
Upon the sad and darkened soul,
And swift wings it like a dove
For its far, eternal goal

Of pure joyous life and love!

“ Dear Nina,” said he, when he had finished them, " she is evidently unhappy, and yet will not confide in me, or shorten the time which would give me a right to know and to share her every sorrow."

When Nina returned, the Prince had not long to plead to be made acquainted with her source of disquietude.

"Ah! Kieseroff, I have long wished-long intended-but long dreaded to tell you all; but the fear that you would despise me, and the conviction that I could not marry you has prevented me."

For

"Good heavens, Nina! what do you, what can you mean? God's sake explain yourself!" exclaimed her agitated lover, who now looked as death-like as herself.

As soon as she was sufficiently recovered from the panic his manner infected her with, in a trembling voice and with downcast eyes, she acquainted him with the whole transaction between her and Zamoiski.

"Is that all!" cried the Prince, ecstatically; "I breathe again; it was indeed foolish-nay worse, mine own love, it was avaricious and covetous in the extreme of you who possessed such matchless beauty to want more; and I have a great mind, in order to punish you, to leave you just as you are: but as that would be punishing myself too, I will even be generous, and give you back your flacon, which I found one day

* The opal is said to be produced by and found after a thunder-storm.

after you had gone out, on the floor, by this very sofa, and have kept it ever since."

Nina joyfully seized it, and instantly placed the mermaid ring round the diamond-crested eagle's neck. She had no sooner done so than a servant entered, and presenting her with a card, said—

"The person who gave me this would speak with your ladyship." Nina looked at the name on the card, which was no other than Paul Zamoiski.

"Show him in instantly," said the young Countess.

On entering, he bowed slightly to the Prince, and then turning to Nina, said

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Lady, I am come to take back the gift that I foresaw you would so soon be weary of, and I hope it has at least had the good effect of convincing you that Whatever is is best;' and that there is one thing which gives a woman a greater weight in the world than even beautyreputation !"

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CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES AT DRIBBLE HALL.

"I shall expect you to remain from the 24th (arriving at or before 4, as I dine at that hour precisely, liking a long evening in the country) 'till the morning of the 26th." I quote from the chandler-like letter of invitation which I received from Ephraim Dribble, Esquire, to pass the Christmas with him at Dribble-Hall. For the 'Squire's Elegant Epistle at length, such readers as would refresh their memory by a reperusal of it are referred-to adopt the 'Squire's own phraseologyto my last, dated 1st ult°.

Punctuality at a start on a journey is all but an impossibility. In hazarding this assertion I do not intend to cast the slightest reproach either on his Majesty's mails, or the "Wonders," "Darts," " Arrows," "Swallows," and "Eagles," which are continually shooting and flying to all parts of the kingdom,-or on the respective drivers thereof: they are always awfully exact to their time: the assertion applies only to the traveller. Do you doubt it? Take your stand at the White-HorseCellar in Piccadilly. The clock strikes four. Simultaneously with the last beat of the hour, the Bath "Regulator," for instance-(and this one instance will serve as well as the hundred which are of daily occurrence)—the Bath "Regulator," which has waited there its appointed time, dashes off. Within the next minute, a hackney-coach drives furiously up at the rate of three miles an hour, the horses puffing, blowing, stumbling and steaming, and the coachman, poor fellow! nearly exhausted by the labour of flogging them. Out steps a stoutish gentleman buttoned up in a great coat, with a scarlet worsted netting tied round his neck, and a cloak hanging across his arm-for though the month be July, and the weather fine, a prudent English traveller will, nevertheless be on the look out for squalls. Not finding the coach there, as he had expected to do, he congratulates himself on his having arrived in excellent time. In reply to his inquiry how long it will be before the Bath "Regulator" comes up, he is told that it has been gone nearly a minute; but that if he will run as fast as he can, and the coach should encounter any accidental stoppages on its way, there is some

chance of his overtaking it at Kensington. As there is no time to be lost, the hack is, of course, out of the question; so off he runs. But (you will say) there were three other passengers in the coach when it arrived at Piccadilly, and thence infer that they had been punctual. No; they had not. One had booked his place at the Saracen's Head, Aldgate, and would have lost it altogether if (thanks to the stoppages which sometimes occur even in the city) he had not been enabled to come up with it on Ludgate-Hill, whilst the other two, whose appointed starting-place was the Bolt-in-Tun in Fleet-street, had been in the desperate predicament of being nearly five minutes behind time, and were only saved by the providential event of the Bath "Regulator" being hemmed in by two coal-waggons, the Fulham errand-cart, the Lord Mayor's coach and a brewer's dray, just under Temple-bar, where they found it.

If, at a start on a journey to be made in a public conveyance, which, we are aware, possesses, in common with time and tide, the accommodating attribute of waiting for no one, punctuality be all but impossible; its approximation to an impossibility is certainly not diminished when the journey is to be performed in a private carriage, with post-horses at one's own command. As, under the most favourable conditions of the weather and the roads, it is a four-hours' drive to Dribble-Hall, Worthington (who had volunteered the use of his commodious travellingchariot for the excursion) requested that, on the morning of the twentyfourth, I would be in readiness at ten o'clock precisely; at which hour, he, accompanied by Heartall, would call for me. "Thus," said Worthington, "we may do the thing easily, and have a spare hour, or so, to rest and dress when we arrive at the Hall." "Now remember," (and this he uttered with all the earnestness of a Belvidera,) "remember ten! The 'Squire will want his dinner at four: and he will be sadly put out of the way if we should keep him waiting for it."

The morning of the twenty-fourth of December was what, in London, is called a rather fine-ish December morning, for there was neither hail, rain, sleet nor snow: there was merely a slight fog, scarcely more than sufficient to prevent one's seeing across from one side of the street to the other. Worthington, being one of the most punctual of men, was no more than twenty minutes behind the time which he himself had appointed to call for Heartall: the fortunate consequence of this delay was, that he found Heartall so nearly ready to accompany him, that he was kept shivering in his carriage at Heartall's door for hardly more than a quarter of an hour. As for myself, by the time they were with me I had just finished my breakfast and the reading of my newspaper (by lamp-light), so that I had nothing in the world to do but dress; and this ceremony I accomplished with so much expedition that as the clock struck eleven, which, after all, was only sixty minutes past ten (the hour appointed) we were fairly on our journey.

66

"I wish," exclaimed Worthington, we had not lost this hour! We shall not get down to the Hall much before four. However, we will tip the post-boys well, and endeavour to make up for lost time."

Our road lay eastward. "O for a curse to kill!" exclaims some merciless tragedy-hero. Were there a curse of power to shatter into fragments and disperse a villanous compound of bricks and mortar, there were not at this moment existing an atom of that vile, worthless, wicked and most unwarrantable Wych-street. You arrive at a city feast just too late for the turtle: you had encountered a stoppage in Wych-street.

-How was it, when you intended to set off by the Rotterdam steamer the other day, you did not reach the Tower-wharf till twenty minutes after its departure ?-Your coach had been blocked up in Wych-street. -Hearing reports unfavourable to your banker's solidity, you jump into your cab and drive down to Lombard-street for the purpose of drawing out your balance. On your arrival, you are told that these worthy people had stopped payment about half an hour before! Your curses are showered upon Wych-street, wherein you had been jammed for nearly twice as long. Every hour in the day it is the object of the heart-born execrations of the numberless unfortunates who are caught in it. But, alas! it is proof against every mode and form of anathema. Yet, owing to some strange infatuation, coachmen (public and private), cabmen, post-boys, drivers of all denominations, every mother's son of them will lead you into that abominable and fatal ravine. So did it chance with us. We had proceeded half-way down it when we were met by a moving mountain in the shape of a broadwheeled waggon drawn by eight horses. To pass each other was impossible; so nothing remained but for one of us to back out of the street. The waggon could not, so we must. But, for a long time, neither could Behind us was a cart laden with iron bars, behind that were three hackney-coaches, and behind those, carts, cabs, and hand-trucks, all jumbled together in inextricable confusion. In what manner we escaped from it I know not; but, in order to avoid a recurrence of the calamity, we ordered the post-boy to turn off into Holborn. "What we lose in distance we shall save in time," said Heartall." It will be full four when we get down to the Hall," sighed Worthington.

we.

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As we advanced into the city the fog became more and more dense; so, notwithstanding that all the shops were brilliantly illuminated, our progress was not rapid. It was somewhat retarded also by another circumstance. It happened to be cattle-day-so called as being one of those agreeable days on which thousands of sheep and bullocks are driven from Smithfield along the most crowded streets of the metropolis. London is the only city in Europe which can show so pretty a sight. Elsewhere, the animals suffer their melancholy doom in the suburbs, or at a distance from the town; and their remains are afterwards brought into it in carts, or trucks, or on men's shoulders, or by some other such clumsy contrivance but in London they are made to carry their own briskets, ribs, rounds, and steaks, their necks, shoulders, legs, saddles, and haunches, directly to that part of the capital where it is intended they should be consumed. Now it is clear that by such means much human labour, as well as considerable expenditure for artificial carriagein contradistinction to the natural mode of self-carriage here adopted— is spared and these inestimable advantages are gained at no greater cost than that of spreading confusion and dismay over half the town; of an old woman or two frightened into fits; a few useless children smashed; and occasionally a man gored and tossed by an over-driven ox-this last, however, tending greatly to the amusement of the spec

tators.

Coupled with the state of the atmosphere, this being, as I have said, cattle-day, our progress was but slow. Scarcely were we clear of one drove of bullocks when we found ourselves in the midst of another. Then, the howling and barking of the dogs, the yells and shouts of the drovers, the roaring of the cattle, and their pretty innocent gambols!

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